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Giant cell tumors rarely metastasize and the incidence is probably less than 3 percent. If benign giant cell tumors metastasize, it usually is to the lung. The prognosis of benign metastasizing giant cell tumors is unpredictable, but 25 precent die with progressive disease. Neither histologic features nor ploidy status predicts which tumor will metastasize. Recently, it was reported that metastasis-associated protein 1 (MTA1) had role in epithelial cancer cell invasion, proliferation and nuclear regulation. It was also revealed that ezrin, a cytoskeleton linker protein, was actively involved in the regulation of growth and metastatic capacity of cancer cells and was expressed in soft tissue sarcomas with distant metastasis and recurrent disease. To investigate the predictive value of MTA1 and ezrin in metastasis of benign giant cell tumor, we analyzed expression of MTA1 and ezrin using immunohistochemistry in 2 cases of benign metastasizing giant cell tumors. Neither MTA1 nor ezrin expression was noted in the primary giant cell tumors. MTA1 was not expressed in all the metastatic tumors. However all metastatic tumors showed immunohistochemical expression for the ezrin. These results suggest that ezrin and MTA1 immunoreactivity in the primary giant cell tumors may not be valuable for predicting metastasis of giant cell tumors. However the value of ezrin expression in the metastatic tumors is needed further evaluation.
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